Dr. Fuyuki Hirashima is a cardiothoracic surgeon at the University ofVermont Medical Center and assistant professor of surgery at the LarnerCollege of Medicine at UVM in Burlington, VT. She specializes in adultcardiac surgery,minimally invasive heart surgery, coronary artery bypass surgery, Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation(ECMO) which is a treatment that uses a pump to pump blood through anartificial lung back to the blood stream, and Left Ventricular AssistDevice (LVAD) which is a mechanical pump inserted into a person’s chest tohelp pump blood.Dr. Hirashima believes that heart surgery is a life changing experience forpatients -- they are not the same as they were the day before the surgerycompared to the day after. She believes that her role as a surgeon is notonly to provide a safe operation, but to help guide them through thismoment of their lives.Learn more aboutcardiothoracic surgeryat the UVM Medical Center.